Theos-Talk Archives (June 2006 Message tt00084)

Dear Friends, 

Daniel Caldwell ( see below ) and everyone can discuss sentence by sentence of Ernest Pelletier's book THE JUDGE CASE -- and I guess it will be healthy and useful.

The book deserves attention for many reasons.  

*It shows the axial importance of Mr. Judge in the history of the theosophical movement; 

*It shows Judge's persecution for political motives, promoted by Annie Besant and Henry Olcott, who wanted to have all political powerr in the movement; 

*It describes central aspects of the theosophical movement; 

*It presents the reader with a great amount of previously unpublished documents; 

*It suggests that doing justice to Judge will be a way of doing justice to the movement itself, and to recover it to a better situation along the 21st century.  


Regards,   Carlos Cardoso Aveline   

 


De:theos-talk@yahoogroups.com

Para:theos-talk@yahoogroups.com

Cópia:

Data:Sun, 04 Jun 2006 17:34:28 -0000

Assunto:Theos-World MERE SPECULATION SPINNING AND A MISTAKE, TOO??!!

> Below are a few of my notes that I have jotted down concerning some 
> of the contents of Ernest Pelletier's book titled THE JUDGE CASE.
> 
> I will title this section of my notes:
> 
> MERE SPECULATION SPINNING AND A MISTAKE, TOO??!!
> 
> In Part 1, p. 366 of THE JUDGE CASE, Ernest Pelletier writes:
> 
> ==============================================================
> 
> It is interesting to note that although Exhibit "A" was the 
> prosecution's strongest piece of material evidence it was not 
> mentioned openly by the main characters, other than Judge himself 
> who brought attention to it in his "Reply by William Q. Judge." 
> There is no doubt the intent was to use it against him. In "The 
> Case Against W.Q. Judge" Besant never refers to it, although copies 
> of other letters from Judge are included. In the above quotation 
> Olcott instead dwells on the `poison' letter. There appears to have 
> been a concerted effort to discredit Judge by misleading people to 
> believe he would stoop to such treachery as to imply Olcott would 
> poison Besant. This leads one to hypothesize that perhaps the 
> individuals involved were unsure about the Exhibit "A" letter 
> actually working in their favor.
> 
> ====================================================================
> 
> Pelletier assures his readers that
> 
> "?Exhibit `A' [the letter William Judge had written to N.D. 
> Khandalavala in 1884] . . . was NOT mentioned openly by the main 
> characters, other than Judge himself who brought attention to it in 
> his `Reply by William Q. Judge.' . . . In `The Case Against W.Q. 
> Judge' Besant NEVER refers to it [Exhibit "A" letter]?." Caps added.
> 
> But notice that in the same paragraph Pelletier goes on to state:
> 
> "?Exhibit `A' was the prosecution's strongest piece of material 
> evidence?."
> 
> How does he know that? Did the prosecution say that? Where is 
> Pelletier getting this from?
> 
> Or is this just some speculation on Pelletier's part? And what if 
> anything is this speculation based on?
> 
> Pelletier goes on:
> 
> "?There is no doubt the intent was to use it [Exhibit "A" letter] 
> against him?."
> 
> Again since Pelletier states that this letter was never mentioned or 
> referred to by the prosecution including Mrs.Besant, then how does 
> Pelletier arrive at the conclusion that there can be NO DOUBT [at 
> least in Pelletier's mind???] that the INTENT was to use the letter 
> against Judge???
> 
> Again is this just more speculation? How does he know what their 
> intent was? Does he have some kind of documentation for this?
> 
> Again Pelletier comments:
> 
> "?This leads one to hypothesize that perhaps the individuals 
> involved were unsure about the Exhibit "A" letter actually working 
> in their favor. . . ."
> 
> Well at least here we know Pelletier is hypothesizing!
> 
> But what good is all this hypothesizing that PERHAPS the prosecution 
> was "unsure" about the letter working in their favor??!!
> 
> PERHAPS they were "unsure" but PERHAPS they were NOT unsure! Who 
> knows based on what Pelletier tells us?
> 
> This kind of speculative rhetoric may lead some readers to believe 
> something has been actually proven when in fact nothing has. But we 
> are left with just one supposition piled upon one or two
> other suppositions. Perhaps this, maybe that, etc. etc.
> 
> Hopefully readers will not assume that he has therefore proven 
> anything substantial because as far as I can tell, he has not.
> 
> I think this paragraph by Pelletier illustrates at least one of the 
> major weaknesses found THROUGHOUT this book when Pelletier writes 
> about Judge and the Judge Case --- THAT IS,
> PELLETIER'S PENCHANT FOR ENDLESS SPECULATION.
> 
> But UNFORTUNATELY, it would appear that in this paragraph Pelletier 
> doesn't even get his basic fact(s) right in the first place!!!!
> 
> Again let me point out that:
> 
> Pelletier declares to the reader that the Exhibit A letter "was NOT 
> mentioned openly by the main characters, other than Judge 
> himself?." Caps added
> 
> and 
> 
> "In `The Case Against W.Q. Judge' Besant NEVER refers to it?." Caps 
> added.
> 
> But contrary to Pelletier's assertion, the Exhibit A letter IS 
> mentioned openly by one of the main characters!
> 
> The letter is referred to in Mrs. Besant's THE CASE AGAINST W.Q. 
> JUDGE!
> 
> One need only turn to page 69 in Part 2 of Pelletier's OWN book and 
> read the following:
> 
> "The mechanical difficulty of such writing is nothing for Mr. Judge, 
> and a curious illustration of his facility is found in an old letter 
> to Judge Khandalavala, September 17th, 1884, in which he shows how 
> easily signatures may be copied by producing those of Col. Olcott, 
> Mme. Blavatsky and two others."
> 
> This text IS from Mrs. Besant's book THE CASE AGAINST W.Q. JUDGE as 
> reprinted in Pelletier's book.
> 
> No mention????? No reference???????
> 
> In summary, this whole paragraph by Pelletier that we have been 
> dealing with is basically worthless and should just be crossed out! 
> I would suggest that he rewrite it for a possible second edition and 
> hopefully he will NOT indulge in more speculation spinning.
> 
> Daniel Caldwell
> 
> 
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> 
> Yahoo! Groups Links
> 
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> 
> 
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